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[ddudley]

I just got back back from a very long Day 2 at the 3rd ever PPT event here in San Jose. I've had a great time since I've been able to meet a lot of big name players and even had short conversations with several; Kenna James, Chris Bigler, David Pham, Tony Ma, Evelyn Ng, Josh Areah, Hoyt Corkins and Howard Lederer. But, the player I got to know the most was Peter Costa. If you don't know who he is here's a link:http://www.paradisep...r_articles.htmlIf you haven't seen him play on TV, he has a great attitude at the table and nothing seems to ever bother him. His attutide really reminds me a lot of Daniel's.Anyway, I had spoken with him for a few minutes on Day 1 during a break. I was thinking that would be the end of it but, after showing up around noon on Day 2, we were walking down the hall in opposite directions and he actually spoke to me... first. He asked how I was doing and actually remembered my name. Wow! Throughout the day, on breaks, we continued to have conversations about how things were going and how he played certain hands, etc. One hand, he said he called an all-in with AA. When the cards were flipped over the other guy had KK. Unfortunately, he ended up splitting the pot with a straight on the board. Dispite this, Peter was still doing well and had a lot of chips to work with.At one point during the day, Matt Savage was giving away 2 tickets to the PPT final table taping. The question to the crowd was "who is the only player to make the 1st two PPT final tables". I shouted out "Chris Bigler" and Matt walked over and handed me two tickets. Sweet!As day wore on, Peter continued to hang in there with a profound lack of good cards. He was stealing blinds when he could and bluffing a few hands. At 6:00 PM, it was time for the dinner break and the AA was still the only quality hand he had gotten all day.The next break after dinner was around 9:00, there were about 20 players left. When I was talking to Peter, I let him know that I had won the tickets to the PPT final table and that I would be there to cheer for him if he made it. He said that it shouldn't be a problem to make the final six since he had more chips than usual at this stage of the tournament (evidently he has a lot of come from the short stack type tournament wins). He was in the middle of the pack a far a stacks went, around 70K, and the chips leader had around 130K with 1.6 million in play.Around 10:00 PM they moved him to the feature table. He continued to steal and bluff when he could but pretty much went totally card dead from this point on. Around 11:00 PM they were down to the final 9 players and the final table. Peter was still there in the midde of the pack. Around 12:00 PM the they were down to 7 players when they stop the action and start tearing down the set. What heck is going on here? They have to get down to 6 players before they can quit for the day. Evidently, there was an agreement to have everything cleared out by a certain time and they were going to have to start tearing down the set at midnight, no matter what.So, they moved the 7 players to regular table with a couple of lights and 3 hand held cameras. At this point, Hoyt Corkins, Toto and X-22 all had pretty big stacks and nothing to worry about, as long as they didn't do anything stupid. Tom McEvoy, Marsha (Kenna James' wife), Peter and a guy who I thought might be Eli Elezra (but it turned out to be Casey Kastle) were all much shorter in chips, but all generally equal. It looked like to me that Peter had a little more chips than Marsha and Tom, so I was hoping he could sqeak in to the final 6. At this new "regular" table I was able to stand directly behind Peter, about 2 feet, and he was showing me all the crap hands he was folding. 6-5o, 9-4o, 3-2s, 6-4o, J-3o - it was all complete crap. I was hoping he would pick up a good hand soon. Tom and Marsha went all-in (on different hands) and neither got called. After that, it seemed like Peter was definitely in trouble. At midnight the blinds/antes had gone up from 2000/4000/1000 to 3000/6000/1000, (quite a big jump for a huge tournament like this). It was now around 12:30 AM and Peter was back down to around 50K. It was now costing 16K per round and things were really moving fast with no flops being seen at all. He was going to have to pick a spot soon and go all-in.Peter was third to act and finally pushed all-in after X-22 and Marsha had folded. Casey folded and Toto was on the button studying Peter. Ater a minute or so he called the 50K or so. Hoyt folded, then McEvoy goes all-in pretty quick for about 90K. Wow, that's big trouble when Tom goes all-in with 2 people already in the pot (if you don't know, Tom has a reputation for being tight as hell). Toto thought for a minute or so then folded his A-6o face up. Peter turns over J-10 off and true to form, Tom has Q-Q. Doh! To make matters worse, Tom flopped a set of Queens and it was all over when no miracle straight cards appeared on the turn.They only pay the top 6, so after 20 hours of playing his heart out, Peter is out one spot away from getting paid. He was great about it though. He took it all in stride and did his exit interview with a smile on his face. On the way out he told me he was happy with the way he played and he just didn't get any good cards the last 4 or 5 hours. He said his sponsors were really happy he had made it so far into the tournament. (they will get a lot of air time since there are supposed to be 5 shows dedicated to each PPT event).After it was all over, we were talking and he actually apoligized to me for not making the final table. Wow, I couldn't believe it, he just busted out on the bubble and he's worried about me being disappointed. Wow, this guy is one class act.

[tripOne]

Great coverage man.. Thanks for sharing.I'll definitely be on the lookout for Peter when the event makes it to television. Enjoy the final table.

[ddudley]

Glad someone enjoyed it. I hope he comes off as nice on the TV coverage as he was in person.